Impact community Society216

Urban alliance formed to support German G7 Presidency

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The Association of German Cities (DST, a CEMR member), ICLEI and the Global Parliament of Mayors have launched an urban alliance to accompany the German G7 Presidency. The alliance will support the G7 Presidency programme and provide urban perspectives throughout.

The German G7 Presidency began at the beginning of 2022 and will culminate with the G7 summit on 26-28 June in Schloss Elmau (Bavaria). For more information on the urban alliance, please consult the press releases of ICLEI (in English) and DST (in German).

CEMR joins 2022 campaign for democracy in Belarus

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The Council of European Municipalities and Regions (CEMR) joins this year’s campaign on #DemocracyUnderPressure in Belarus initiated by the Young European Federalists (JEF). During last year’s campaign, many European cities lit up their town halls in white-red-white, the colours of the flag of free Belarus. The following statement has been adopted by CEMR.

We support the Belarusian people’s wishes for a peaceful democratic transition in the country at all levels – including making local governance systems more democratic. This process follows the Presidential elections of August 2020, which were neither free nor fair.
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CEMR recallslast year’s statement and urges the EU institutions and national governments to strengthen assistance to Belarusian civil society, including to organisations promoting local democracy and municipal autonomy, which are a genuine training ground for democratic citizenship and the rule of law.

We express our solidarity towards border cities and regions in Latvia, Lithuania and Poland and we welcome the European Commission’s proposition on the temporary legal and practical measures to address the emergency situation at the EU’s external border with Belarus.

We ask our members, like last year, to illuminate their public buildings in the colour of the Belarusian flag on 25 March unofficial day of freedom in Belarus, celebrated annually by the democratic opposition.

Discover the “rights and values” programme for the period 2021-2027

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The presidency of the Council and the European Parliament reached a provisional political agreement on the rights and values programme for the period 2021-2027.

Funding through this programme aims at protecting rights and values enshrined in the EU treaties in order to sustain open, democratic and inclusive societies. It will have a substantial overall budget of maximum €1.55 billion.

The programme will have a budget of €641.7 million, with an additional allocation of maximum €912 million and it sets out four specific objectives:

• to promote equality and rights, including gender equality, anti-discrimination and the rights of children
• to promote citizens engagement and participation in the democratic life of the EU and to raise awareness of the common European history
• to fight violence, notably against children and women
• to protect and promote EU values

The newly introduced objective to protect and promote EU values will receive a substantial allocation of € 689.5 million. An amount of € 91.2 million will be left unattributed so as to be able to tackle any emerging needs and future challenges.

To achieve this, the programme will support civil society organisations and other stakeholders active at local, regional, national and transnational level, and encourage civic and democratic participation.

The provisional political agreement reached today will have to be approved by the European Parliament and the Council. The necessary steps will be undertaken at the beginning of next year.

Local and EU leaders’ debate: time to strengthen European democracy from the bottom-up!

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With the Conference on the Future of Europe, citizens across the continent have a unique opportunity to organise local events and make their voice heard to shape the direction of our Union. But how can we foster citizens’ participation? And what visions do we have for municipalities and regions in the future of Europe?

Last week, ahead of our Policy Committee meeting, local and regional leaders, senior EU official and representatives of civil society took part in a debate to discuss precisely these questions.

Dubravka Šuica, Vice-President of the European Commission in charge of Democracy and Demography, emphasised that European democracy must not be a top-down process. “Once a mayor, always a mayor,” she said. “As a former mayor, I know all politics is local.”

Mayors and regional leaders must make their voices heard at the Conference. The Croatian commissioner said it was impossible to know what the Conference’s outcome would be but that it was important to already look for ways to embed citizens’ participation in decision-making.

Taking local action to involve citizens

Involving ordinary citizens in European debates and decisions is not always easy however. Developments in Brussels and Strasbourg too often seems remote and abstract. That is why the French city of Rennes has invited local citizens to participate through municipal projects.

Flavie Boukhenoufa, Deputy Mayor of Rennes, presented Labo Europe, an organisation helping citizen get involved in and better understand the EU. This year the “Lab” launched a campaign to develop a European Citizens’ Initiative (ECI) for Rennes. Citizens are able to send in their ideas and participate in online debates to create the city’s proposal for a European action.

The final choice will be presented on Europe Day on 9 May. “We aim to speak not with experts but with citizens, even those who have no knowledge about the EU”, said Boukhenoufa. Get inspired by checking out this video and website on Rennes’ citizen initiative

People across Europe can provide their input to the Conference by organising local events and registering these with the official online platform. Servane Metzger, part of the Cabinet of the French Secretary of State for European Affairs, highlighted the importance of these local events in terms of engaging people and reflecting the sensibilities of different regions.

Metzger raised the possibility of maintaining the platform into the future: “The platform is an extremely powerful tool to map events. It’s really easy to see events that are nearby, that way we reach local people, not only EU specialists.”

What future for Europe?

The health of European democracy is also affected by the state of national and local democracy.  Mayor of Gdansk and CEMR Executive President Aleksandra Dulkiewicz stressed that we cannot take democracy for granted and urged protecting the next European elections from digital threats and outside interference.

Vibrant local democracy can also be a bulwark against negative developments at national level. Dulkiewicz called on the Conference to support NGOs and local and regional governments to counter rising authoritarianism. “These two pillars should be strengthened because threats to democracy, rule of law, human rights and transparency in one EU country can affect the whole community”, she said.

Jordanka Fandakova, the Mayor of Sofia and CEMR Executive President, highlighted the importance of the digital divide, with rural areas in particular often lacking connectivity. She called for making equal Internet access a priority. “Digital strategies should not only be focused on big cities, but also take into consideration the needs of small towns and communities”, she said.

No one can say what will result from the Conference. Eva Maydell, a Bulgarian MEP and President of the European Movement International (EMI), argued that pandemic showed the power of European solidarity, but also the need to strengthen our continent’s autonomy. She stressed that the EU can only maintain trust if the Conference delivers results: “Like every political project, the EU is based on a story and its ability to meet the promises it makes to its citizens.”